Avina

In this case the central issue is whether the trial court erred as a matter of law in awarding $501 as nominal damages. We have concluded that $501 is far in excess of the amount that can. legally constitute nominal damages and modify the judgment accordingly.

The suit was commenced by the plaintiff tenants for wrongful eviction and wrongful detention of personal property from leased premises against the defendant landlords. The court, sitting without a jury, found the plaintiffs had been unlawfully evicted and that defendants unlawfully detained plaintiffs’ personal property. The court further found:

and concluded in pertinent part:

The appeal is upon the judgment roll alone (Code Civ. Proc., § 670). No transcript of the evidence is before us. Accordingly, only matters appearing in the clerk’s transcript are to be considered. Under these circumstances, the evidence is conclusively presumed to support the findings, including the finding that no compensatory damages, special or general, were suffered by respondents. (Bristow v. Morelli (1969) 270 Cal.App.2d 894, 896, 898 [ 76 Cal.Rptr. 203 ].) There are no persuasive indicators in the clerk’s transcript that the judge…